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Multiple-Meaning Words

A multiple-meaning word is spelled and said the same way but means different things: a bat flies at night, and you hit a ball with a bat. Context is the only clue, which is why these words are such good reading practice.

Here are 120 multiple-meaning words from past ClueBy puzzles, each with a real example sentence for every meaning. Use them as a reference, or make a printable worksheet below.

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Students read each sentence and write the missing word. Every word appears in several sentences, each time with a different meaning.

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Multiple-Meaning Words

Name: ____________________Date: __________

Write the missing word in each sentence. Each word is used more than once, with a different meaning each time.

  1. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  2. Jeff had to ________________ the pavement for three months before he found a job.
  3. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  4. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  5. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  6. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  7. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  8. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  9. Is the royal ________________ prepared for the journey?
  10. The ________________ told me I needed to practice harder.
  11. There's no middle ________________.
  12. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  13. Rodrigo's family went to the dog ________________ to adopt a dog.
  14. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  15. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  16. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  17. The water is too ________________.
  18. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  19. Have you met the new head ________________?
  20. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  21. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  22. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  23. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  24. A ________________ is equal to sixteen ounces.

Sentences from ClueBy, Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR) and Common Voice (CC0). clueby.com

Answer key

  1. wax — for sculpting
  2. pound — to hit hard
  3. march — music
  4. cold — an illness
  5. bat — for baseball
  6. march — the month
  7. march — the month
  8. wax — in the ear
  9. coach — pulled by horses
  10. coach — a trainer
  11. ground — a position
  12. bat — the animal
  13. pound — for dogs
  14. cold — the Cold War
  15. fall — to drop
  16. fall — to drop
  17. cold — not warm
  18. ground — the earth
  19. coach — a trainer
  20. ground — crushed
  21. bat — in an idiom
  22. wax — to grow
  23. fall — the season
  24. pound — a weight

Multiple-meaning words list

Tick up to 10 words to build a worksheet with just those words.

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Frequently asked questions

What are multiple-meaning words?

Words with the same spelling and pronunciation but more than one meaning, like bark (of a dog or of a tree) or bank (for money or of a river). You can only tell which meaning is meant from the rest of the sentence.

Are multiple-meaning words the same as homonyms?

Mostly, yes. Teachers often use "multiple-meaning words" and "homonyms" for the same idea. Homophones are different: they sound alike but are spelled differently, like flour and flower.

Are the worksheets free?

Yes. Make and print as many as you like for home or classroom use. Each sheet has its own link, so you can print the same one again.

Where do the words come from?

From past ClueBy puzzles, a daily game where you sort twelve sentences by their missing word. A new puzzle every day adds four more words to this list.

Sentences from ClueBy, Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR) and Common Voice (CC0). clueby.com